I rushed up the empty driveway to let foxy into the house, but then remembered that I was going to dinner. I couldn’t leave foxy hungry. It didn’t take long to get his dish out and put two scoops of food into it. I set it at the table and scratched his head as apologetically as I knew how.
“I’m so sorry, buddy, but I have to go. You eat your dinner and be good for Gideon, okay?” He cocked his head confusedly, but I didn’t have time to stay and fix it.
The answer to whether I wanted to have dinner with my grandmother was finally answered in its entirety for me. Even if by some odd chance she turned out to be amazing, I would say no if my presence was demanded again. I had responsibilities at home. Well, one responsibility, but that was enough. Foxy was more important than a woman who had spent three decades pretending I didn’t exist.
When I got back out, the driver didn’t seem especially bothered at having to wait on me, and he didn’t look at my clothes with a sneer or anything quite so Cinderella-story-ish. He mostly looked bored at having to sit in my driveway waiting on me.
“Sage McKinley?” he asked, in a tone that said he already knew the answer. I nodded, and he opened the car door for me. In fact, when he slid into the front seat, adjusting the rearview mirror, he met my eye. “Don’t worry. We’ll be right on time.”
I would never admit it, but some tension unwound from my shoulders at the reassurance. “Thanks.”
He nodded, flipped on his turn indicator, checked his side mirrors, and pulled into the nonexistent traffic on my street.
The house was bigger than my block, and it didn’t have a driveway. It had its own damn road. No wonder my grandmother never visited when I was a kid—her house could have eaten my little two-bedroom place in one bite.
My face must have given away how overwhelming it was, because the driver spoke up from the front. “It’s not so bad. And Mrs. Mack is a great lady.”
“Mrs . . .” Was he talking about my grandmother? Or was there a cook or a housekeeper named Mack? “I’m sorry, this is a little surreal is all.”
He nodded back. “Don’t I know it. I almost passed out when the employment agency sent me over. Thought they’d made a mistake, and whoever answered the door was going to set the dogs on me.”
“I take it they didn’t?” I glanced around for the inevitable Dobermans or Rottweilers who would be there to eat intruders.
He chuckled as he turned the engine off and slid out of the car without answering. When he opened the door and I climbed out, he leaned in. “Here’s all you need to know about Mrs. Mack: the only dog on the premises is her familiar.”
He led me to the front door, where an older woman was waiting. Given her starched uniform, I presumed she was not my grandmother. She inclined her head deferentially and proved me right. “I’m Beryl, Mr. McKinley. If you’ll follow me, Mrs. McKinley is waiting in the dining room.”
She didn’t even glance at my clothes, let alone sneer. Just like the driver. I turned to ask his name, but he was already back at the car. I made a note to ask on the way home. I wasn’t going to be the kind of person who didn’t learn other people’s names based on social status.
Hell, both of them probably made way more money than me anyway. A thin blood relation to the woman at the top didn’t count for all that much.
The second I got inside, I saw what the driver had meant.
There was an English bulldog lying on a plush dog bed near the bottom of the stairs. He moved his head far enough to look at me when I walked in, and his stubby little tail started wagging tentatively when he locked eyes with me. I couldn’t help myself; I was drawn as though by magic to where he sat, mostly unmoving. This was my grandmother’s familiar? The lifelong companion of the terrifying woman I’d been dreading meeting?
“Hey,” I said to the dog, tentatively reaching my hand out to him. “I hope you don’t mind the smell of fox.”
He sniffed, and his tail wagged harder, so I reached up and petted his head. He leaned hard into me, and I couldn’t keep the